Genre: Romantic Suspense

Disclaimer: Reading is all about exploring new worlds, but this Book Review does not shy away from spoiling specific scenes as this is more of a look inside the good and bad of a book.

The Analysis:

This is the first of a do-it-yourself, yearly, Book Challenge for 2022. The prompt was #37: That’s a murder mystery. I’m going to be doing lots of readathons and TBR prompts to help myself get through my backlog of ebooks on my kindle and google play. So, let’s book review it. But first, follow me on Goodreads.

Here’s The Blurb:

On a fateful night in Las Vegas, FBI agent Leo Grant is working on a critical detail in a high-profile child prostitution trial when a beautiful woman jumps into the path of a bullet meant for him. Little does Leo know that the woman is Olivia, an ex-assassin who is seeking redemption one good deed at a time.

One minute, Olivia is lunging in front of Leo on the Vegas Strip. The next, she’s waking up in the hospital in a haze of pain with no memory of her past, her enemies, or even her own name.

With Olivia suffering from memory loss and completely unaware of the danger she is in, it’s up to Leo and Neil MacBain’s team of operatives to keep her safe. With Olivia and Leo both unaware of her past crimes, the two have little reason to avoid their growing attraction. Slowly her past seeps in through the cracks as she struggles to find the answers of who she is. When the veil is lifted and her dark past is staring her down, Olivia must turn her back on Leo and the love she can never allow herself to have, and race to find her would-be killer.

Cover Critique:

I could totally picture this model as the lead character, beautiful, yet stoic. The cover itself is simple but communicates that something serious is going on behind the scenes. I like it.

Now The Story:

Book Info:
Pages: 349
Author: Catherine Bybee
Available: Amazon

When a novel starts off with a character waxing poetic about a sniper scope then you know it’s going to be good. Then you completely forget what it’s about, until the storyline drops the amnesia bomb and then you’re instantly excited. I will say that I’m reading this book out of order and it’s probably not a good idea to do so. There are a handful of supporting characters talking about things that have no context if you just jump into the book. Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t conjure up any love for them. They all seemed to be conniving, secretive fakes. And when they decided that pushing a relationship between the amnesia girl and the agent was the right thing to do to reach their goals it put a bad taste in my mouth. I also hated how smug they seemed to come across just because they knew her before her pre-amnesia.

This novel has multiple povs: the hero, the heroine, and the boss of this secretive organization. The action and storyline are engaging and interesting. The romance made me crave two things. An ending that didn’t include her getting her memory back and dumping the good guy. And two, genuine alone time for our characters without a house full of supporting characters got annoying. Since both happened point off because it would have been much cooler if the new boy toy figured out her escape plan and tagged along and she eventually told him the truth about her past herself.

Also, the gender roles are definitely reversed in this story. The heroine is the strong and brooding type and the hero is the soft mush. I’m not sure I appreciate that because it’s missing something. The hero is coming across as useless and that’s no good whether there male or female. The supporting characters are doing the heavy lifting to track down his girl, but he’s supposed to be FBI. But this might go back to my complaint about how the setup to the ending was arranged. However, It must be mentioned that later we do get a similar scene of him taking charge and I very much appreciated it.

Elsewhere, her return to Richter, the place she assumed to be at the source of her trouble, was also a disappointing end. The heroine was clearly living in the past. Instead of forcing a relationship it would have been nice to see her return only to find out the school is now just a school and there are no hidden secrets. Nature would have forced her to live in the present and not the past. Instead, they left it open to assume that there were still things being hidden the butler just wasn’t going to show her.

Now, I’m complaining about this stuff but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story.

Story At A Glance:

Recommendation:  4 out of 5

Read Series Continuation:  Yes

 The Ratings:

Book Cover Appeal:

🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓

Story & Narration:

🍓🍓🍓🍓

Romance:

🍓🍓🍓🍓

Character/(s) Personality:

🍓🍓🍓🍓